


Blinker

by KousKousx



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Alcoholism, Drabble, Drinking, Gen, Month of Sin, Unbeta'd, prompt - angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 20:12:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6254248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KousKousx/pseuds/KousKousx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On bad days, and as Morty had grown to realize, during Rick’s weaker days, the guise would fall and the bags beneath his eyes would intensify. His scleras would grow pink, spawning deep, red veins, and every ounce of Rick’s troubling life experiences sat heavy beneath his lashes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blinker

**Author's Note:**

> My angst prompt for Month of Sin.

“Morty, hey--hey, Morty,”

Morty could just barely make out Rick slurring for assistance over the sound of booze bottles tumbling out of the driver’s side. “Morty can you--need a little help here, can you,” One strong hiccup from Rick shook him from his shoulders to his gut. “Will you help an old man--can you help your grandpa out?”

Tangled in his seat belt and covered in a mess of broken glass, it was a miracle that Rick managed to make them home in one piece. There had been a few close calls--namely Rick overestimating how much room he had beside the space equivalent of an oil tanker and nearly sending them careening into it--but Rick had managed to land the ship in its proper place in the garage, despite his more than obvious impairment.

A few bottles managed to find their way out of the passenger seat door as Morty slipped out of the vehicle, mindful to avoid broken glass as he made his way towards the driver’s side. As he tangled with his seat belt, Rick activated the ship's blinker in what looked to be a grab for leverage, filling the garage with the echo of the directional’s distinct _ping-pang_ , _ping-pang_ , _ping-pang._

“Jeez Rick, couldn’t you--it was a short ride home, couldn’t you have, I dunno,” Morty slid his arms under Rick’s carefully as he attempted to dislodge him from his seat. “C-couldn’t you have waited to get completely tanked till after we landed, maybe?”

“Mmmmm, nope, Morty, nope, can’t--couldn’t do that, Morty. Wasn’t,” Rick reached for him, digging his nails into Morty’s shoulder as he poorly attempted to balance himself, casting his full weight on the other. “How any _oOug_ nne drives the _IX-54Glezorp_ sober is, it’s beyond even me, Morty, it’s a death trap of a highway.”

As he mindfully steadied the uncoordinated Rick onto his feet, Morty glimpsed into a couple, brief memories from years passed of them in a similar situation: Rick drunk, hardly able to stand and Morty there as his pillar. The only difference then was that Morty had to stand on his tippy toes to get any semblance of height on Rick. Now with the two of them nearly nose to nose, the days of Rick’s height being imposing were over. He even felt lighter, almost frail, when he leaned himself against Morty. Rick so docile was weird, almost uncomfortable, because that also meant Rick was vulnerable, and it still managed to unnerve Morty .

It had been a few, long years of adventuring with his grandfather but even today, Rick’s heavy drinking and moodiness were still unpredictable for Morty, who as he carefully directed him to his work chair, eyed Rick closely from under the fringe of his hair. To Rick’s credit, most adventures wouldn’t end this way. Most adventures would end, of course, with Rick wistfully drinking from his flask and recounting the usually harrowing events they just lived through.

Comments like, _d-did you see the way that guys face exploded? did you see it Morty?_ or _I’d say good job, Morty, b-but nearly getting wasted by some asshole three feet shorter than you with the alien version of a pellet-gun isn’t a very good job, now is it?_ Even Rick’s more painful and cruel comments were more welcomed than this quiet, lucid state.

During evenings such as this, meeting Rick’s eyes was the hardest, because the look in Rick’s eyes on a good day held the stare of someone forty years younger. Rick’s enemies knew all too well who they were dealing with once they met the icy, hard scowl of Rick Sanchez. His gaze, sharp and calculating, told his clients _don’t fuck with me_ when it came to business matters, and most of his associates on the receiving end of his gaze got the warning loud and clear. It was the stupid ones, or the unfortunates with a listening problem, that were exposed to a lot worse than a dirty look from Rick.

The unwavering, cold, and analytical stare that Rick held told harrowing tales to Morty that Rick’s mouth could never-- _would_ never--tell. Morty figured they were beyond his capacity for learning anyway, what with Rick had seen, had experienced, and lived, in the deep depths of space.

With melancholy clear in his half-mast eyes, Rick plopped down at his workbench and sagged his whole front against it. It was incredibly rare moments like this where Rick would show Morty his soft underbelly, allowing Morty to spot and count the imperfections in Rick’s carefully crafted mask. When feeling particularly dejected and comfortable enough in his misery, a few good swigs of booze would get Rick to drop his sharp-tongued masquerade.

“Grandpa Rick has some of the saddest eyes in the world,” Summer said once from behind her phone screen on a night similiar to this. Truly, Summer had some real moments of clarity when she was feeling insightful enough, and Morty couldn’t agree more with her observation.

On bad days, and as Morty had grown to realize, during Rick’s weaker days, the guise would fall and the bags beneath his eyes would intensify. His scleras would grow pink, spawning deep, red veins, and every ounce of Rick’s troubling life experiences sat heavy beneath his lashes.

Morty searched through the catalogue of his mind as to what could have possibly offset Rick this adventure. Trauma wasn’t uncommon when it came to Rick and Morty’s escapades. There were plenty of nights filled with bad cuts, bruises and even worse memories, and this evening hardly stood out. They had obtained the _Beraxyn_ crystals, after all, a successful mission with no more bloodshed than usual. Sure, people had died, but people dying or at the bare minimum getting maimed (Morty included) wasn’t out of the norm. Today, Morty hardly flinched at the sight of green blood splattering wildly from gouging, exterrestrial wounds.

Rick was familiar with tonight’s foes--Space Pirates, and not like the jolly animatronic folks that were the actors in Rick’s treasured _Pirates of the Pancreas_ . No, they were _real_ pirates, the type that invaded territories that transcended intergalactic boundaries, with large guns to sell and trade and withering hostages. Pirates that didn’t have gold teeth, but flippers, tentacles and claws. Pirates who didn’t seem all too happy to run into the infamous Rick Sanchez.

All things considered, they were done away with well enough when Rick had set their ship’s autopilot, unbeknownst to all passengers on board, sailing to their death and straight into an all encompassing black hole.

_Those hoOuoughstages Morty--where were we--where were we gonna put them, huh? You going to fit twenty people into the passenger seat next to you? They sure as hell--I wasn’t sharing my seat with them. I took these seats from a fucking Buick, Morty, they weren’t--no way they’re fitting in here, that’s for damn sure._ Rick was already a few good sips into his flask as he muttered about their demise. _They were gonna have a fate worse than dark matter anyway, Morty, we did them a favor. We--we do best when we don’t stick our nose in intergalactic affairs, do I have to keep reminding you?_

At a younger age, Morty may have argued a little harder than this evening’s meek, _it doesn’t make it right, Rick_ , but Morty’s stare probably had its own story to tell if he let it wander onto the right pair of prying eyes. After all, despite the crass explanation, Rick was probably right. Hostages were more of a burden for the Galactic Federation anyway, they’d be living in some form of grungy, alien gulag if they had anything to do with it.

 Rick teetered dangerously in his chair, bringing Morty back to reality as he fished a bottle from out of one of his shelves. After one sip Rick’s eye-lids shut languidly, and he sat up right in his chair like the booze had gone and soothed him.

“...Alright, fine, you--you gonna be mopey for the rest of the night? Cause, look Rick, I-I got better shit to do.” Morty had given up ages ago, within days of meeting his grandfather, trying to pull apart Rick’s brain. Reminded for years about his mental simplicity, Morty knew that trying to reason with a man like Rick was a wasted effort. Rick Sanchez simply didn’t have a brain that could be picked at; Rick Sanchez had the type of brain that required a full staff of seasoned hard hats and half a dozen pieces of heavy machinery in order to dig through the recesses of his intellect. Such a bright mind certainly came with its burdens, and Rick regularly decided to unload the strain of them with a few good pulls of his flask. “Whatever Rick, I got--I got an algebra test tomorrow, I’m--I’m off to bed.”

Morty’s bones ached as a reminder of how late it was and how early he would have to wake. Angling himself towards the door, he swept Rick’s all too tight hand from off of his shoulder. It was a soft hiccup that resembled a _wait_ which stopped Morty in his tracks. He peered over his shoulder uneasily before turning to face Rick, arms crossing against his chest in irritation.

 “Y-yes, _Rick_?” Morty didn’t feel like putting up with Rick’s drunk, cryptic mutterings tonight.

 “What made you go back?”

 Morty’s face twisted in confusion. “What?”

 “What--what made you go back?” Rick paused, wanting Morty’s mind to fill in the blanks but naturally, he was quick to get frustrated. After a good swill of his drink, Rick continued for Morty, his hand nearly slack enough to let his booze bottle clatter to the floor. “To the crystals, Morty. W-What m _aAugh_ de you go back for the crystals?”

 Rick’s eyes opened like he was staring into the sun, so dismal and drunk, as he attempted to stare Morty down. Morty’s vision shook as he looked between Rick’s face and his shoes, head scrambling desperately for memories from the evening.

 The drive to and from the Space-Pirate Ship. Alien languages and machine guns. When Rick had managed to piss of the crew’s captain by commenting on the shape and size of his head. All the norm, in Morty’s book. Finally, after a few minutes of silence, a poignant memory rose full bloom from the depths of Morty’s mind after sifting through the evening.

 Morty couldn’t blame himself for nearly forgetting, because the memory seemed inconspicuous enough. Morty “blundering the adventure,” as Rick all too affectionately dubbed it,  wasn’t unusual either, so when Morty had managed to drop the satchel of crystals in their hasty getaway and send them sliding down a garbage chute, it wasn’t anything new. Rick started off no more or less pissed than usual when the sharp clatter of what sounded like rocks hitting the ground echoed through the hallway. As the ship tossed and turned, the bag of crystals were just short of tumbling down the garbage chute.

 Morty lept without a second thought, legs moving before his brain as he sent himself to the ground, sliding across the smooth floor and ignoring Rick’s angry bellowing from behind. Rick’s cries of _what are you doing, Morty, you idiot?!_ rang over the exchange of fire from both sides. Quickly, with Rick shooting alone, no matter how skillfully, the odds of them getting out alive, let alone with the crystals, seemed less and less in their favor.

 Long ago, Morty discovered that through all the blood, sweat, tears, broken bones, and emotional scarring, a mission well done was at least one where they could make a few extra Schmeckles at the expense of his well being. Injury was often and blood was expected, so when Morty reached down towards the garbage shoot, fingers wrapped tight and secure around their bounty, he nearly fell down into what he assumed was the ship’s equivalent of a trash compactor. With a heart pumping fast enough to make him all too aware of the dire situation, Morty got just far enough down the chute to feel his skin momentarily pull from his bones, from his eye sockets, and his face. After a quick twinge of pain from the sensation, Morty scooted backwards and pulled his laser from out of his holster, helping Rick take out the remainder of their foes with a few decently aimed gun shots.

 Years later, after a job well done, Morty still slipped into the passenger seat awaiting some sort of praise from a less than benevolent Rick. It was rare, yes, but Morty’s save on the crystals would pull in a good thousand Schmeckles after all, so Morty had expected a grin, maybe a little _not bad_ at the very least. Instead, Morty was met with Rick’s infamous, furrowed brow of indifference, which at times, stung worse than any insult.

 In his youth, this would have hurt Morty, maybe even would have made him cry in the solitude of his bedroom, but for now, Morty sat as silent as a stone and glaring out the window in unspoken resentment as Rick unscrewed the lid of his flask.

 Eventually, the more he drank, the more Rick grew weirdly quiet and stoic but his apathy always melted away into something more festering and dark, emotions eerily similar to Rick’s coldness but without the witty quips and delightfully obnoxious observations. Rick would recede into something he had only let Morty become privy to with age, an undeniable sadness that with all the leagues of space Rick had seen, Morty could never understand.

 Midway through their trip back to earth, Rick was reaching into the backseat to shuck out a few beer bottles. Some days, Rick offered, letting Morty drink a beer or three, but tonight wasn’t one of them as he chugged them down on his lonesome. As they approached earth, Rick was reduced to merely haunching over the steering wheel, neck slack from time to time as he skimmed the line between sleep and consciousness.

 It wasn’t anything new to Morty, who knew with the closer they got back to home, the closer he was to hauling his grandfather off to bed. On luckier nights, Morty could get away with plopping a drunken Rick in front of the glow of the television or better yet, just leaving him in the ship. Rick, although drunk this evening, was still cohesive enough to speak, which meant he was bedroom bound. Morty would probably have to drop him off in his cot, observing Rick just long enough for to see whatever he was drinking for the night tip over and waterfall off the bed.

 “Ea _AUurgh_ th to Morty,” The slur of Rick’s voice, reverberating in the man’s chest more than usual with the lull of sleep, broke through Morty’s inner musings. “Paging--Paging Morty Smith, party of one in the flat, single celled plane that he calls his mind, we’re w _Augh_ ting with baited breath.”

 Anger made Morty’s chest grew tight till it felt like there was no room for breathing. Morty learned after a particularly rough night of purging that he had a short fuse. Suddenly, all the anxiety from countless of adventures came crashing on Morty’s head like a piano, clattering down on him in a mess of snapped strings and broken keys. Maybe it was the exhaustion or tomorrow’s exam. Maybe it was just a plight for Rick to finally notice the weight that Morty pulled around in this duo, whether on the drive back to earth, or when he untangled the grown ass man from out of his seat belt.

“ _Why_?” Morty glared at Rick, suddenly disgusted with the booze on Rick’s lip, the tinge of yellow in his eyes, and the lines of age in his face. “Because that’s why you bring me along in the first place, Rick, how--how stupid do you think I am?”

 Rick made sure to take a long sip from the bottle before he answered.

 “I think you’re--I think you’re pretty fucking stupid, Morty.” Even when drunk, Rick’s flat stare, so belittling without even a twinge of facial muscles, sliced Morty right in two. “I’ve seen your grades, Morty--a damn mess, if I, if I’m giving my two cents. I also nearly saw you get su _Uugh_ cked down a fucking open garbage chute today despite the big, yellow sign over it saying ‘DANGER,’ like it could be any less obvious to any stupid asshole standing in front of it. There you were, Morty, half way in it, like the damn thing co _Ough_ ldn’t tear the skin right from off of you once it threw you into space.”

 Affronted wasn’t the word. For a brief second, Morty had a glimpse of taking Rick’s neck in his hands and squeezing, snapping his spine with a few good kneads of his fists, but Morty knew better. Despite appearances, Rick could break his wrists with a few well placed moves, maybe even in a state as sloppy as this. That didn’t mean Morty didn’t think about choking Rick right then and there, because every adventure Rick dragged Morty on involved him facing something that could very easily kill them, why was tonight any different?

Morty could feel the flush of anger and hurt rise to his face but before it could form into words, Rick beat him to the bunch, swirling his drink hard enough to make the liquid audibly slosh inside the bottle.

“Tell me, Morty,” Rick’s whole body shook from  the force of his next hiccup. “Tell me--at what point in our adventure d-did you think that you were less important than the crystals?”

 The cogs in Morty’s brains churned slow and cautiously as he eyed Rick with scrutiny. About a dozen memories spawned to the forefront of Morty’s mind as evidence for his answer. Instinctively, Morty wanted to say, ‘always, Rick, _always_ ,’ because regularly Rick would remind Morty that he was blundering dolt and arguably disposable, depending on Rick’s mood.

 After patiently accepting his place in Rick’s life, the fact his own grandfather found him so moronic and dispensable had softened to a low, aching throb once Morty realized something that his mother, blessed and as smart as she was, could never simply grasp: expecting Rick Sanchez to be anything he wasn’t was setting yourself up for heartache. Rick wasn’t a man that could stay bound and gagged to the whims of others, let alone to the others living on Earth. He was not a family man, he was not a doting grandfather. Quite frankly, he’s exactly what was sitting in front of Morty, slumped over himself and covered in his own sick.

 The little light in Morty’s head flickered every so often but right now it burned bright enough to blow out the bulb. Morty knew then that no, Rick may never give him the praise he wanted, but Rick wasn’t a man who necessarily had a lot to give apart from a hundred good ideas and the thousands of ways to poorly execute them. All Morty wanted was a _good boy_ from the man that it mattered from the most, but who was Rick, a galaxy-wide criminal, to deem what was right and wrong, and who was good and bad. Rick was also not the type to throw around kind words, either. It was stupid of Morty--as per usual--for him to expect Rick to say how he felt.

 Perhaps the question of what was more important this evening, Rick’s grandson or Rick’s score, was Rick’s way of saying that Morty was more important than the crystals he had bitched and moaned about obtaining for over a week. That didn’t make Rick’s lack of approval for Morty’s feat anymore justified, and even the sordidly thick Morty could see through Rick’s shitty attempts to placate him. Morty knew just well enough that if he hadn’t gone back for the crystals, he would have gotten a similiar Rick staring back at him across the garage, one who was just as drunk and enigmatic as this one, but just a tad more angry and demeaning.

 When Rick wanted to show that he cared for Morty more than his adventures in space, Morty would believe him. That didn’t mean he would be holding his breath waiting for it, either. Morty was positive he could, with this realization, turn away and make his way out of the garage with a clean conscience.

 Morty rolled his shoulders, gesturing with open palms in a sign of resignation, when he finally gave Rick his answer. “At what point were the crystals _less_ important than me, Rick?”

 Despite being all too aware that he, proudly enough, didn’t stutter once in his response, Morty lowered his hands and blinked at his grandfather, who observed him through those glazed over, sleepy eyes. For a second, Morty had worried that Rick was too drunk to comprehend Morty having an inward epiphany, but despite it all--the next sip of booze, the vomit stained sweater, the clammy, cold sweat of a well nourished addiction that was beading itself on Rick’s forehead--Rick nodded, full of understanding. With his lip turned up and brow raised high in his hair, it was almost as if Rick was looking at Morty with some respect.

 “You’re--you’re alright, Morty, you’re not--once in awhile, you managed to whip one out, I can give you that.” Rick turned to face his workbench, wrench tight in hand, a small mechanism in the other. It was impressive how easily, even in this state, Rick could align and screw in bolts like his depth perception wasn't completely fucked. “Not bad, Morty--granted, y-you, you did answer a question with a question, kind of a cop out--going to have to dock a few points from you for that one.”

 It was recognition--conceding and lackluster--but recognition none the less, yet now with it clear in Morty’s sight, it wasn’t as sweet as he would have liked it to have been. Despite this, after telling himself he was done expecting too much from Rick, Morty felt himself grow a tiny bit sick at the way his guts twisted at even the slightest sliver of appreciation.

 “Whatever, Rick--W-whatever you say.”  



End file.
